


A King's Sacrifice

by SteveGarbage



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Archdemons (Dragon Age), F/M, Fort Drakon, Ultimate Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5417321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteveGarbage/pseuds/SteveGarbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was the moment. One blow left to make. One blew left to free Ferelden from the grip of Blight. Riordan had declared it was his to take. But he had tumbled from the sky and broken upon the streets of Denerim. It fell to one of them.<br/>And only one of them wasn’t Ferelden’s King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A King's Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soldiermom1973](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldiermom1973/gifts).



> This holiday gift-fic is for Genea as part of the Secret Santa fic exchange on the Dragon Age Fanfiction Writers group on Facebook. Thanks for being a part of our group and best of luck with your writing going forward! We're glad to have you. Hope you enjoy this story!

The Archdemon writhed, black blood gushing from its many wounds, as two Wardens stared down the beast as it struggled.

Elissa Cousland lifted her fingers, resetting them around the grip of her longsword. This was the moment. One blow left to make. One blew left to free Ferelden from the grip of Blight. Riordan had declared it was his to take. But he had tumbled from the sky and broken upon the streets of Denerim. It fell to one of them.

And only one of them wasn’t Ferelden’s King.

Elissa stared down her death now, the rotting, snarling, bloody maw of the Archdemon before her.

“Wait,” Alistair quickly said, seeing the tension on her face and the quivering in her legs. “Let me. There’s no need for you to die. This is _my_ duty. I should be the one to kill it.”

His words froze her legs even more than they already were. She turned her head, looking upon Alistair. His sword arm hung limply at his side and his right shoulder looked mangled. His left hand covered the wound, but she could see scarlet blood trickling around the edges of his gauntlet. But his fingers were still tightly wrapped around the grip of the sword.

“Why… why would you sacrifice yourself, Alistair?” she whispered.

“I didn’t want to be king,” he said. “But you convinced me. And I want to be a good king. And this right here is the best king I could be, my first and last act being to stop the Blight before it really starts. No one could blame me for that, could they?”

He didn’t look right in the gilded armor, but he wore the mantle of king well.

He had rallied Ferelden’s army at the gates of Denerim. He had been the first one through the breach, his sword and shield crashing through the ranks of darkspawn as he bellowed a warcry. The vigor and focus he exerted as she marched through the burning streets of Denerim were one she had never seen in him before. For the first time, he saw more than just the Blight, of a black wave of plague and corruption needing to be stopped. He saw the Blight destroying Ferelden, his home, his land.

He couldn’t die. Ferelden needed him. Now, more than ever.

“That’s not the only reason,” Elissa snapped. “And you know it!”

Alistair sighed, turning his head to the side so she couldn’t see the shame that washed over his face.

“You’re right,” he said. “I know how I feel about you. I won’t let you die, not when I can do something about it.”

“No!” Elissa shouted “I won’t let you die! Not for me. Ferelden needs you. It’s the only reasona--”

She was cut off as Alistair pulled her into his arms and silenced her with a kiss. She could feel his body clench in pain at his wounds as his lips pressed down upon hers. His hands slid around her hips as he held her now.

They had trudged through tragedy and loss since their first meeting at Ostagar. In the darkness, they had come to each other. They suffered the same losses, the same duty and responsibility. They both understood the stakes and the costs it would take to stop the Blight. That mutual respect and understanding had blossomed to more.

They had laid together in her tent during the cold nights of camp. They had protected each other, side by side, in battle after battle. He had taken her as his queen, so that, together, they could make Ferelden better.

And now they stood together, in embrace, knowing one must live and one must die.

“I can’t let you go,” Elissa said as she reached her hand down, slowly, secretly drawing her dagger from the sheath at the small of her back. If she could quickly drive it into the joint at his hip, it would not be fatal but it would give her enough time to bound past him and take the final blow.

“I’m sorry,” Alistair whispered as he placed his forehead down upon hers. “But I’m not giving you a choice.”

Elissa struck.

She felt a strong hand grab around her wrist, stopping the dagger just before it could plunge through the weak point in his armor.

Alistair wrenched her wrist, causing her to lose her grip on the dagger. He twisted her arm, spinning her body as he jammed her arm around her back. His foot wrapped around her shin and he shoved her forward, tripping her over his extended foot.

Elissa tumbled toward the ground, extending her hands to catch herself on the ground. Her knees slammed into the ground and the shock ran up her forearms as her palms touched the blood-slickened stones at the top of Fort Drakon. She pushed herself up, cursing, as she turned around.

“Alistair! Don’t!”

It was too late. He was already in full sprint, his hands pulling up a two-handed sword in stride. The Archdemon struggled to its feet. It lifted its horrific head, its jaws opening, a piercing shriek cutting out of its throat. Its long, slithering neck twisted and snapped down like a asp.

Alistair ducked under the blow, the blade dragging across the length of its throat, black blood cascading over his shoulder as he slid and braced the blade. The Archdemon wailed, it’s body slumping to the ground again, shrieking in fear at the gaping wound he had opened in it.

Elissa was running, he left hand outstretched toward Alistair.

His chest heaved up and down. He turned his head back toward her, a sad smile crossing his face as he lifted the blade above his head.

“Noooooooo!!!”

The sword plunged down behind the Archdemon’s skull.

A pillar of white light shot upward out of the wound. Alistair’s body writhed, his hands locked onto the hilt of the sword as if he were wracked with electric.

“Alistair!” Elissa was so close now. Just a few more paces. There was still time. She could knock him aside. She could save him. She could pull the side and slam it down, severing the dragon’s head. She could take the blow, she could make the sacrifice, she could save him.

The burst of light was so blinding she was forced to turn her head, so that she could never see the wall of force that threw her across the tower like a doll.

Elissa slammed into the stone, the wind forced out of her lungs as she hit the ground hard. She gasped, struggling to pull the air into her lungs. Her mind raced with panic, both at being unable to breathe and for Alistair. She rolled onto her hip, pushing herself slowly back to her feet as she meandered ahead through the wracking pain.

The dragon lay dead, the sword still plunged deep into its neck.

The body wrapped in gilded armor lay a few feet away, crumpled on its side.

Alistair lay just as still as the dragon.

“Alistair?” Elissa said. He didn’t answer. “Alistair!”

She forced her feet to run, sliding on her knees across the bloody stone as she came to his side. She lifted his head in her hands, feeling no resistance from his body. She pushed his body, rolling him onto his back as she shed her gauntlets.

Her fingers touched his cheek, his flesh already as pale as death and cold as ice. His eyes were closed, his mouth sagging, his body weightless.

“Alistair?”

He didn’t answer.

“Don’t leave me here, without you,” Elissa pleaded, shaking him. The tears began to streak down her cheeks.

Morrigan crept up to where Elissa sat, cradling Alistair’s head in her lap. The Witch’s face was as stern and emotionless as ever as she approached.

“Leave us,” Elissa spat at the witch.

Morrigan ignored her, crouching down at Alistair’s side. She looked his body up and down and glanced over at dead dragon a few feet away. She closed her eyes, whispering to herself for a moment, a black energy swirling around her right hand.

“Yesss,” she hissed, a small smile creeping across her face.

“You monster!” Elissa shouted.

“Silence, girl,” Morrigan barked back. “If you want him to live.”

Morrigan pressed her glowing hand over Alistair’s heart as she tented the fingers of her left hand over her stomach, pressing her nails down into the soft, exposed flesh of her belly, digging them down until they cut and began to draw blood.

The witch’s lip curled into a grimace at the pain and she strained as she shoved her right hand down hard onto Alistair’s chest, a pulse of black and red magic creeping up her arm, crawling up her extended arm like a creature. The light passed across her chest, sliding down her left arm as it split along her left hand, penetrating deeply into her abdomen.

Morrigan cried out, doubling over as the magic pushed its way into her. Her eyes and mouth gaped as she bent over screaming, a blackness flooding into her golden eyes. She pulled her hand away from Alistair’s heart, pressing it down onto the ground to brace herself as strings of black and red blood fell out of her mouth like thick drool. Her shoulders trembled and she hacked, shoving her left hand down, her fingertips coating in her own blood as she pinched them in toward each other.

The apostate mouthed words in a language Elissa had never heard, rapidly chanting them between grunts of agony. She rambled them off, even as more black blood spilled out of her mouth, spitting it in thick globs with all of the hard consonant sounds that groaned out of her throat.

And with one final glob of a spit and a word that sounded as hard and vile as the gore leaking between her lips, she collapsed down onto her side in exhaustion. Whatever dark magic had just occurred her was an abomination beyong anything Elissa could have imagined.

Alistair’s body twitched hard in her hands, the sound of his lungs wheezing as he struggled to suck in a breath of air.

“Alistair!” Elissa cried out, helping to sit him up as he coughed and struggled to breath. He lifted his hands, looking at them as if he was confused by his own life as she was.

“I’m…” he glanced at Morrigan passed out on the ground next to him. “I’m, alive?”

Elissa wrapped her hands around the side of his face, kissing him. He didn’t kiss her back, perhaps too scared or too dumbfounded. She didn’t care. He was alive, despite Riordan’s warning. The Senior Warden had been wrong. Alistair was alive.

He wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling his hands slowly wrap around her back and hold her too.


End file.
